Invocation for steady rain in Mesopotamia
A gentle start, just after midnight
when insurgents and soldiers are sleeping
and only nursing mothers and watchmen
of vulnerable utilities are
witness to the drum.
By dawn it is steadily thrumming
on canvas, on jeep, on corrugated.
Splattering corpses, moistening faeces,
reviving the aroma. Curfew
will be academic.
Steadily the foreign weather descends.
Steadily, beautiful, peaceful rain drops
replenishing artesians and keeping
gunmen indoors, under their still
unwidowed mothers' feet.
By afternoon it is bucketing, rising
drains drench, and thus preserve, Babylon.
Atrocities are postponed. Guns are slippery,
trigger-fingers cannot get a purchase,
explosives are drenched and rendered
useless for suicide. Aid workers
remain un-kidnapped.
On the second day, all deaths are from
natural causes, and on the third day, the rain
in Iraq becomes a small news story. Coffin makers
accumulate modest stock-piles and young men,
waiting - at first impatiently - for suicide,
develop patience.
Page(s) 24
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